Approximately 23 out of 100,000 people aged 15-60 years have found themselves unable to blink their eyes or purse their lips out of nowhere.
Bell’s palsy is a kind of facial paralysis that makes muscles of one side of your face uncharacteristically weak. The affected individual may no longer be able to control the facial muscles of one affected side. Significant damage to facial nerves, which is responsible to regulate the muscles of the affected side of your face, is the primary cause of Bell’s palsy.
Numbness and weakness on one side of the face subsequently cause drooling, difficulty to close the eye of the affected side, pain behind or in the ear, increase in sensitivity to sound, loss of taste, and eye problems are some of the common symptoms of Bell’s Palsy.
As frightening as the condition sounds, there are exercises that can be done at home to lessen the effects of Ball’s. Here are a few:
1. Eyebrow lifts
• Look in the mirror, raise your eyebrows, andhold them in the raised state for 10 -15 seconds. Continue holding your eyebrow in the raised state till the corner of your mouth or cheek begins to move. Wrinkle your forehead.
• Place your four fingertips on your affected eyebrow, and rub by making a firm stroke with your fingertips up to the hairline.
• Make a frowning face and try to draw your eyebrows down.
2. Lip Shifts
• Close and lightly compress both your lips. Then, release them and again lightly compress both the lips. Try to maintain the lip compression till your eyelid begins to move. During this exercise, focus on relaxing the muscles that surround your eyes. Initially, your eye movements might occur. Following this regularly, you will be able to perform these lip movements without involving your eye.
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• Pucker the lips and maintain lip compression for some time.
• Curl your upper lip up. Then raise it and try toprotrude your lower lip.
• Snarl by stretching both your lips.
• Now smile. While smiling focus on your smile till your eyelid is not involved. Watch your eye and lower eyelid. Also, watch your neck muscle and try not to pop it out while you are smiling.
• First smile without showing your teeth up and then smile by showing your teeth.
• Speaking activities also help improve lip movements. Practice speaking words that involve letters B, M, F, and P slowly and softly, and repeat them by looking in the mirror continuously. Maintain our eyelids open while you are speaking.
• Puff your cheeks out with air in them. Now, hold your air-puffed lips shut ensuring that no air escapes out. Hold your puffed cheeks for 3 to 5 seconds.
3. Nose Wiggles
• Wrinkle up your nose.
• Sniffle
• Have a deepbreath through your nostrils and try to flare your nostrils.
5. Neck and Chin Lifts
• Tilt your head to one side and slightly backwards, then hold it for ten seconds and slowly get back to normal. Follow the same on the other side. This neck exercise stretches your neck muscle and improves its flexibility.
• Wrinkle or harden your chin
• Like a boxer, stick out your chin
Jasmine Browley holds an MA in journalism from Columbia College Chicago, and has contributed to Ebony, Jet and MADE Magazine among others. So, clearly, she knows some stuff. Follow her digital journey @JasmineBrowley.
